A few sites report that the beta of ArcWeb explorer is available, so instead of reporting that, I actually tried it! Warning: when you visit the link above, on the ESRI website, you will see ads from companies providing data to ArcWeb Services. That took me by surprise, I confess. I guess it's just another perk of being an ESRI data provider.

Verdict: It's ok; I'd describe it as a sort of a Live Local/Google Local client wannabe.

It uses Flash 8, which seems to work fine. It's Java, so you need not download anything. For now it's a front end to some selected ArcWeb Services. In time, developers will have access to tools to customize it, as I understand.

It does, to quote the demo we gave for ArcView 1.0, about five things:

navigate - You move around the map via a strange iPod-looking wheel. I found panning slow and could see each tile redrawing. I fould it awkward to use. (It wants to be as fast and elegant as Google Local panning, but it's not.)

find - It geocodes quite well and will find location of computer by IP address (mine was spot on) and geocode lists of addresses in an Excel spreadsheet. (I didn't have such a spreadsheet to test, but I have to believe ESRI customers do.)

directions - It will route between up to 10 locations "dragged and dropped" form the find widget. (Live Locally to me.)

map styles - You can change map colors between default (pastelly), bright (yikes!) and gray scale.

share - you can capture (copy) or send the URL of a map via e-mail